


Hello

by QueenAng



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:54:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27126146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenAng/pseuds/QueenAng
Summary: There was a tug at her knee plating. “Hello,” a small voice said.The Mistress of Flame looked down to see a tiny Seekerling half-hidden behind her calf-plating.
Relationships: Starscream/Wheeljack (Transformers)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 88





	Hello

The Mistress of Flame was not looking forward to this most recent rendezvous with Starscream and his sham government. But Windblade had thrown her lot in with them, and Caminus’s beloved city-speaker had a bigger influence there than the Mistress of Flame would ever willingly admit, so she had seethed quietly and nodded in agreement when Windblade called.

She tried to limit her time spent on Cybertron as best she could, arriving from the Space-Bridge not a moment earlier than absolutely necessary. A guard – scantly populated, no doubt the least Starscream could get away with – met her there and escorted her to the sleek building where Starscream headed up his operations. Only two followed her inside, both keeping a wide girth around her. She moved quickly, half-hoping to lose them in the labyrinth of halls.

There was a tug at her knee plating. “Hello,” a small voice said.

The Mistress of Flame looked down to see a tiny Seekerling half-hidden behind her calf-plating. His bright yellow color made him hard to miss against the pale grey floor. Blue optics beamed innocently up at her. An odd feeling crept over her spark as she looked down at him.

“Hi,” he said again, cheerily, as though she had missed his half-shout the first time.

She scowled, but relented when she realized he likely wouldn’t give up without a response. These Cybertronians had no clue how to properly raise their sparklings. She conceded a curt, “Hello.”

She started to walk forward, but a tightening pressure on her knee plating made her stop before she kicked the Seekerling halfway across the room in her haste to escape. “My designation is Sunstorm,” he chirped. “What’s yours?”

“The Mistress of Flame.”

He didn’t seem to recognize the title. Infidels, the whole of Cybertron. “That’s a neat designation,” he said. “Can you make flames appear?”

She narrowed her optics. “No. Can you make suns appear?”

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

A pause. “Pardon?”

He retained the most innocent look upon his faceplates when he said, “My creators said I shouldn’t use my powers yet, because I might get hurt.”

“You’re an outlier.” That certainly warranted further interrogation. “What is it you can do?”

He looked incensed. “I’m not _supposed_ to!”

Oh, how helpful. This possible nuclear bomb of a mech couldn’t tell her what he could do, but he could walk up to strange bots and begin conversations with no qualms. Honestly, what were these Cybertronians teaching their young?

“You’re not supposed to talk to strangers either,” the Mistress of Flame said.

“But I’ve seen you before!” the sparkling countered. His little helm tilted like a confused turbo-pup. “But you were blue. And really small.”

A holo-image, then. She must have spoken to someone close to the tiny scraplet. She tried to limit her interactions with Cybertronians, lest they inadvertently rub off on her. Her communications remained limited to those within Starscream’s fledgling government. It made sense; the sparkling had to have gotten into the government building somehow, and a creator who worked within it would be able to walk in unobjected.

“Where are you from?” the sparkling asked. “Is it a place with a lot of blue? My creators went to a place once that had a lot of blue on it and—”

“Caminus,” she said curtly.

He stopped. “Oh.” Within an instant, his bright smile returned. “Is it nice there?”

“Better than that.” Assured that the sparkling wasn’t going to release her calf-plating any time soon, she took a long look around the room. Only a few bots wandered about at this early morning joor, and they kept to the outskirts of the room. Optics peered warily at the display in the middle of the hall, where the ruler of Caminus had been effectively halted in her tracks by a Cybertronian the size of a scraplet.

“Where is your carrier?” the Mistress of Flame asked.

The Seekerling frowned. “He’s busy,” he said. “He’s in a meeting. Or, he was going to a meeting.”

She could definitely swing her title around here and locate one errant carrier before her rendezvous with Starscream. A part of her wanted to make him wait. Some bots around here had to have some respect for Camien authority, no matter what blasphemous things their leader muttered. If nothing else, she could terrify Rattrap into telling her what she wanted to know. “Who is your carrier meeting with?”

“The—” He paused, considering his next words. “The _‘bitch from Caminus’_.”

Oh, _of course_. That traitorous, back-stabbing, Unicron-spawned piece of scrap from—

An insistent tug pulled at her knee plating. The little miscreant’s beaming smile was back in place. “Who’s your carrier?” he asked.

“Deactivated,” the Mistress of Flame deadpanned, “as yours is about to be.”

The sparkling’s optics went almost comically wide. “Like, dead?” he asked, his voice a hushed whisper.

Of course he would know that bastardized Earth word better than their own. Clearly, Starscream’s time on Earth had sullied his appreciation for Cybertronian culture, whatever little of it remained. “Yes, dead.” She attempted to shake the sparkling – or spy, knowing Starscream – off her leg, to no avail. “Release me, scraplet.”

He had the audacity to look upset. “You’re leaving? Already?” His grip never weakened. If anything, he hugged her leg a little tighter.

The Mistress of Flame held back a sigh as she reached down and grasped the sparkling at the aperture of his tiny wings, where a small bar crossed between them. He squirmed, and she received a kick to the side of her abdominal plating for her efforts. “Cease,” she commanded, and the Seekerling just wriggled more. His floundering was useless; none of his blows landed, and his servos had yet to develop talons. Her plating never risked a scratch.

“Put me down!” he hollered. Small dentae ineffectively gnashed in her direction. “I’m a big bot! You can’t pick me up!”

Still holding him by his scruff, she began to make her way down the hall. The looks of wariness had become ones of absolute shock as she walked with a sparkling at arm’s length, writhing like a Pit-spawn with just as much ferocity. Of course the wide-eyed gaze and hugs had been an act; he was Starscream’s spawn, after all. He certainly had the same capability as his carrier when it came to causing a ruckus. He didn’t toss insults, but he did hiss and grab at her sleek arm-plating, despite his blows rebounding repeatedly.

“Wait!” the sparkling said, as they arrived on the top-most floor. “I’m not supposed to be up here without my sire!”

“Perhaps you shouldn’t have been wandering about,” the Mistress retorted.

She entered Starscream’s office with no glyphs of warning, bypassing the befuddled secretary standing nearby with a stack of data-pads. The mech didn’t even try to halt her. Or, perhaps, he didn’t want to get close to Starscream’s offspring. Unicron knew what Starscream had taught him.

The door fell open with a clang against the opposing wall. “I believe this is yours,” she said pointedly. She held the sparkling out in front of her, where he immediately ceased his commotion.

“Ri!” he exclaimed cheerfully, as though he hadn’t been hissing like a cyber-cat moments before.

Starscream’s red gaze had narrowed into slits. “Release him, bitch.”

“Control your glossa, heretic.” The sparkling managed one good kick against the inside of her elbow. “Have you lost your processor so soon into your reign? What were you thinking? A _sparkling_?”

The Seekerling had finally realized that his wriggling about was useless, and his aimed kicks were far more effective. The next one struck her wrist, briefly faltering her grip on the aperture of the sparkling’s wings. She hefted him higher, but the scraplet didn’t seem to have any fear of heights.

“Have you no consideration for Caminus?”

“I do have a life outside of political squabbles with you,” Starscream said, stepping around his desk.

“Your decisions effect both Caminus and Cybertron.” She tightened her grip between the Seekerling’s wings. “How can I expect you to commit to ruling Cybertron when you have a Seekerling crawling under pede? How can the citizens of Caminus respect a mech who sneaks around carelessly with his subordinates?”

“Just because you weren’t invited to the ceremony doesn’t mean we’ve been _sneaking around_.”

“And what hapless politician have you manipulated into bonding to your wretched spark?” the Mistress demanded. She glanced to the sparkling, shoving his pede into the juncture of where her wrist armor met her forearm. “Rattrap? Windblade?”

Starscream snorted. “As if I would sink that low.”

“Then who?”

“Why does it matter?”

“Because you are the Emperor Perpetua,” the Mistress said. “You have standards to maintain. If the Primes are to accept your rule, you must defer to them. To stand against their decrees would bring ruin to Cybertron, and to Caminus.”

“So dramatic.” Red optics rolled. “I’m certain Solus Prime and all her friends have bigger concerns than to whom I share my spark with.”

“You are the spark representative of Cybertron,” the Mistress said. “You are a reflection upon your people.”

“And isn’t Cybertron lucky to have my beautiful reflection?”

“ _Who_ , Starscream?”

For a bot shorter than her, it was impressive how Starscream still managed to look as though he were peering down at her over the ridge of his olfactory. “Wheeljack,” he finally said.

Her spark stilled for a moment. “A commoner?”

“Oh, please don’t tell me I’ve upset your delicate sensibilities.”

“You are the Emperor Perpetua,” she repeated. “Your spark was chosen by the Primes. And now you diluted it with the spark of a common Cybertronian? Have you no graciousness for the gift bestowed upon you?”

The sparkling had stopped the worst of his fighting, now swinging limply in her grasp with a pensive look in his big optics. Starscream had the faintest smile upon his lips. The Mistress of Flame suspected he took immense pleasure in being an affront to the gods.

“If you think that I will just—” she began.

The sensation began as an odd burning feeling, light and faint. The plating of her digits prickled uneasily, and then angrily. Gears locked. Her grip weakened outside of her conscious control. Searing pain flared through the neural circuits of her arm. A clenched jaw prevented any sound of pain from escaping, but her servo opened reflexively. The sparkling, as though expecting her reaction, landing with a clank on the floor and scooted away, closer to Starscream. His yellow plating was aglow.

She cast a sideways glance to her effected servo. Radiation burns.

“I think it’s best we reschedule,” said Starscream, and helpfully added, “A grain boundary scrub will help with the burns.”

“This conversation isn’t over, Starscream.”

“Oh, no, I do believe it is.” An ersatz smile, too wide and too bright and very familiar, overtook his gray faceplates. “Have a nice trip back to Caminus, Mistress.”


End file.
